


Never Believe Anything

by applecup



Series: Fragments of a Fallen Empire [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: 5.2 Spoilers, Canon Divergent, F/M, KOTET Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-11-05 08:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11009484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecup/pseuds/applecup
Summary: 'Never believe anything, until you've seen the body'. That was the problem: they'd all seen her executed by Zakuul. For Quinn, though, that wasn't good enough.





	Never Believe Anything

_Never believe anything until you’ve seen the body._

Eirn had said that about herself, years before - rolling her eyes as another shocked ally/enemy learned the hard/best way that she wasn’t nearly as dead as everyone kept trying to pretend. She’d died on Quesh, she’d died on the orbital station on Hoth, she’d died on Corellia, she’d died on Ilum, she’d died a hundred times if you believed the rumours. She collected the best of them, like stamps, and always tried to argue it was a flattery, of a kind.

(She’d used it to berate herself, as well, when Draagh had pulled himself from death and hounded her steps, an augmented revenant who lashed out at her as though doing so might bring him anything but ruin)

Quinn had never stopped hating the blasé way she treated rumours of her death; primarily, if he was honest, because he hated the thought that one day, they might accurate. The only ones she hadn’t scorned had been her own parents, and Quinn suspected that was more because they were her parents than anything else.

(She’d applied the same maxim to her sister, or tried to, but when weeks turned into months and then years with no evidence of Anya having cheated death, she’d spent a week in mourning dress and made an apologetic offering to the Red Lady - one of the vanishingly few times in her life that Quinn had ever glimpsed Sith superstition in action)

These newcomers, though, were no ordinary enemy, and Quinn knew enough of space warfare to know that it was vanishingly rare that all those lost in battle were accounted for. His own father’s body had never been recovered - had been half the reason his mother had clung to that same ridiculous hope he now harboured, in the face of all likelihood and probability.

‘She’s _not_ ,’ Jaesa said, her tone - for once - authoritative and certain in a way that Quinn envied and feared.

He’d never trusted Jaesa Willsaam - she was simultaneously too Sith to never be a danger to Eirn, and too un-Sith to be a trusted ally of the Empire. Eirn, for all her heresies and unorthodoxies, was Sith through-and-through; Jaesa, by contrast, was still far too Jedi for Quinn’s comfort. Still, the words that passed her lips here and now were ones that Quinn desired to cling to - a hypocrisy, perhaps.

'You don’t know that,’ Vette argued - Vette, who hadn’t stopped blubbing since they’d first heard the news of the fleet’s fate. The Republic had been the ones to pull the survivors out of the maw, of course - a relative handful of escape pods, their occupants used to barter for prisoners of war who’d all told the same stories of the Empire’s Wrath - of her heroism, of her sacrifice.

'I can,’ Jaesa retorted. 'I- It’s hard to explain,’ the Sith continued, sighing irritably, 'But she- _something_ in the Force changed. And Darth Marr- I felt him pass.’

The Force, according to all the Sith who’d spoken of it in Quinn’s earshot, had mourned him - the Empire, Quinn knew, had just suffered a blow worse than any the Republic had dealt it in all their years of war. The Dark Council, which had ruled for years in Vitiate’s stead and which finally stepped into his place in the chaos after Ziost, was leaderless and but a hair’s breadth from tearing itself apart. Quinn knew Sith well enough to know that the battle lines were being drawn, and while there were some who served the Empire first - there were others who served only themselves, and who would sooner wage war on rival Sith than the Republic - never mind this new enemy.

'But- Eir,’ Jaesa added - using, as so many did, the shortest form of Eirn’s name (the one she hated, but had long given up trying to dissuade anyone from using; the one Quinn could actually pronounce, and the one he refrained from using all the same).'I’ve tried reaching out,’ she added, sighing irritably again. 'I can’t- _find_ her. Maybe I’m just not- powerful enough. But- the Force hasn’t- mourned her. Not like it should, if she- _had_ ,’ she finished, apparently just as able to use those words as Quinn himself was.

'What was that she always said,’ Pierce rumbled, not looking up from where he was taking apart his blaster. 'Never believe anything-’

-

- _until you’ve seen the body._

There she was, though, in far-too-sharp resolution, bent and bowed before the Zakuulan Emperor, her execution made into a spectacle for all the galaxy to see. Eirnhaya Illte-Quinn, who’d hated the spotlight - who’d done everything she could to avoid publicity, who’d only ever wanted to serve quietly, dragged out in front of every sentient with a holo, and murdered in front of a cheering crowd.

Quinn couldn’t watch, couldn’t not watch. Couldn’t stop throwing up. Sobbed until he passed out, and woke some hours later wishing that he hadn’t.

-

It was a Sith proverb, he knew that much, though for the life of him he could never remember the original wording. He half remembered Eirn half joking that they should found a new Sith line, with that as their motto, and he hadn’t been able to stop grinning for a week at the thought of a legacy worth remembering.

-

Jaesa, for all that Quinn had never trusted her, was the only one who would believe him, and he simultaneously loved and hated her for it. The hope that Zakuul had lied was both what kept him going and what threatened to destroy him - hanging over him, threatening to shatter and to take the last of his sanity along with it.

The Empire, though, took Zakuul at their word - Eirn was declared legally dead, her estate divided up according to her last will and testament and her crew scattered to the wind. Broonmark had long gone by then, disappearing into the Kaas jungles and never returning; Pierce was reassigned, and Vette - who he’d never gotten along with, who he tolerated mostly for Eirn’s sake - disappeared, taking her few things from the apartment and vanishing entirely.

Her allies and contacts, such as they were, were utterly unhelpful and unresponsive. Darth Vowrawn responded only to his calls with a polite form letter sent by an attendant, Darth Marr’s apprentices were too busy fighting amongst themselves, Rathari had gone to ground more thoroughly than ever. Even Acina, who’d once made a point of seeking him out, ignored most of his pleas and responded to the few she did with brusque annoyance, and Quinn re-realised that for all that he’d achieved, for all that Eirn had always insisted otherwise - he was, compared to her, utterly worthless.

-

’-I _cannot_ allow this to continue, Captain. You are continuing to waste Imperial resources-’

'I hardly consider it to be a waste, Minister. The Empire’s Wrath-’

'Captain. I know that you and she were close,’ Lorman began - talking to him as though he were a child who still believed in monsters under his bed, 'And you have my condolences, truly. But your insistence on this- mockery is utterly unhelpful-’

 _Close_. That word didn’t even begin to do it justice. He’d never understood the phrase _other half_ until Eirn, not really. She’d told him once that he made everything possible - that without him, she could never have done so much of what she had. _Be here_ , she’d said, _be you_. _That’s all I need._ In the weeks - months - following her disappearance, he’d come to realise he was much the same; that without her, it felt like part of himself was missing - that the parts of the world that she’d made make sense were just as alien, again, as they’d been without her, and all the more so for the way he knew that she’d have transformed them from an insurmountable challenge to conquerable trial merely by the act of standing at his side.

'Minister,’ Quinn replied, attempting to steady himself, 'I have the word of a powerful Sith-’

'Yes,’ Lorman snapped, 'I’ve heard Lord Willsaam’s prattling too, but she’s one Sith. One _ex-Jedi_ Sith,’ he added, sneering pointedly, 'which does not exactly engender trust. Tell me, Captain,’ he added, 'Have you considered that she is just telling you what you want to hear?’

Of course he had, but the possibility hurt too much to give it much time and contemplation. He couldn’t answer Lorman’s accusation, though, which just made the Minister smile.

'As I thought,’ he smirked, and Quinn saw red.

-

Of course, every time he felt like he’d hit a new low, life insisted on reminding him that there was further still that he could fall.

-

Offerings to the Red Lady were rarely made by non-Sith, but they happened; Quinn’s last act as a free man was one in Eirn’s honour. Incense of a perfume she’d favoured, a bouquet of ziiberry blossoms - small, delicate, purple flowers, of the same sort she’d worn on their wedding day - tied with a white ribbon, chosen for the heresies they’d argued over as much as not.

He refused to believe that she was dead, but offerings for the safe return of the lost living were as frequent - if not more - than those in memory of the dead. Quinn was not a superstitious man in the slightest, and he knew that Eirn largely distanced herself from Red Sith culture - but when mourning her family, she’d found a sort of comfort in the ritual of it, and he found a tie to her that he clung to as if for dear life.

That fate had allowed him this before Lorman’s men had placed him under arrest was- hideously theatrical, he caught himself realising. He could almost _hear_ Eirn humming the funerary march from _Ashaara_ just to annoy him - her and Vette badly singing the duet as off-key as they could manage, and he wished, in that moment, that he’d never once complained about it.

-

He had a recurring dream, in the times between; of Ziost, of the place he’d known as her hometown and of the lifeless husk it had become. Sometimes she was there, amongst the ashes; sometimes, she was amongst the fallen. Sometimes she wasn’t there at all, and he’d realise just before waking that was because she’d left him there, alone.

-

That Acina, of all people, ended up as Empress of the Sith was not a twist Quinn would have predicted. Acina had ambition, certainly, but was reclusive with it - seemed as likely to outlast her fellow Councillors than outsmart them. When the dust settled, though, the makeup of the Dark Council was little changed, and Acina was Marr’s - and Vitiate’s - unlikely heir.

He was at least allowed - required - to shave himself, to dress appropriately, despite the depths to which he’d fallen. He wondered - had to wonder - if Acina wanted to gloat; assuming, of course, she’d ever considered him a rival at all.

'Captain Quinn. A pleasure, as always,’ she oozed - just as shallowly charming as she’d attempted to be when she’d sat on the Dark Council.

He smiled, his former rank as much a painful memory as everything else that had been ripped from him. 'I am afraid my rank is a distant memory, Empress.’

'A pity,’ Acina mused, drumming her fingers on her desk. 'You and I never saw eye to eye,’ she added, 'But even so, I recognise an asset when I see one. Your tactical acumen, your tenacious nature… you should never have ended up where you are. It’s _criminal_ that you did,’ she mused, smirking a little to herself at her pun.

Quinn said nothing; Acina was presumably going somewhere with this, and he was not inclined to stop her. The sooner whatever charade she wanted was over, the sooner he could get back to losing his mind.

'Tell me something,’ Acina added, shifting her position, 'Do you still believe your wife to be alive?’

A trap if he’d ever seen one. Nobody who wasn’t a psychiatrist had asked him that in years; Acina was more powerful than all the psychiatrists in the Empire, though, and didn’t have nearly as spartan an office as any shrink he’d ever been forced to justify himself to.

He licked his lips, nervously - his mouth suddenly dry, his throat suddenly trying to close up on itself.

 _Lie_ , his self-preservation whispered.

'I- do,’ he replied, though - his voice cracking, through disuse as much as the emotions currently trying to throttle him. 'Empress.’

Acina smiled; the smile of Sith, pleased and cruel and merciless. 'I was hoping you’d say that.’

-

A pardon. A _promotion_ \- a job, authority, respect. War, and rumours of war - six years of news that he’d been hiding from, terrified that the one thought that kept him waking up in the mornings might be shattered by a single careless word.

Better/Worse:

 _Security briefing_ [and he always skimread through this section, because it was always the same, to the extent that if it was the same shape as the day before’s he knew he could ignore it] _Guests due today_ [and he usually ignored this one entirely too, because he hated only one thing more than _that possibility_ and that was having to interact with strangers] _Eirnhaya Illte-Quinn_ [and he reread that one until his caf had gone cold and still couldn’t bring himself to believe that he wasn’t the punchline of someone’s idea of a funny prank]

-

Except, no, there she was. Smiling faintly when Acina greeted her, shadowed by her own entourage - dressed in armour he didn’t recognise, and with an expression, when she thought nobody was looking, that he did. Distant enough, across the palace grounds, that he could duck out of sight - could watch her move, and try to convince himself that that what he was seeing was real. When she glanced around at Kaas City - at what it had become, in her absence - she was searching, and for a moment, he could have sworn she looked right at him.

If she saw him, she ignored him; if she didn’t, then she moved on regardless.

-

He spent a good twenty minutes retching in the fresher, nervous terror consuming him in a way it hadn’t in what felt like lifetimes.

-

By the time he returned - by the time he gathered enough courage to seek out the Imperial guard, to attempt to engage with what should have been his duties - it was to news he did not want to hear.

'The Empress and the Alliance representatives have already left the palace, Major. They are not due back for another three hours.’

Quinn swallowed, nervous terror refusing to let go of his throat - the conviction that he’d made a mistake, that he was worrying for nothing, that if he was this cowardly she wouldn’t have cared to reunite with him anyway.

'Alright,’ he just managed - babbled, 'Thank you.’

There would, he told himself, be later.

-

Except, of course, there wasn’t.

-

The Imperial Palace was gripped by chaos, of course - an emergency session of the Dark Council was to be called, but until that happened, Minister Lorman had stepped in and taken charge. Quinn knew that there were a million and ten things that he should have been doing, but all he could think about was the haunted expression on her face that she’d tried so hard to keep from all her other observers, and the polite smile when she’d greeted Acina, and taste of his own bile, clawing at the back of his throat.

-

'Never believe anything,’ she’d once said, curled around him, half asleep, 'until- well, you know.’

He’d thought, obscenely, of his father - and of the grief and denial that had gripped his mother for far too long. 'That’s not always possible, Eihn,’ he’d replied, eventually - stroking her hair, absent-mindedly, and smiling faintly as she purred against him.

'It is,’ she’d retorted, still half asleep, 'You just gotta be determined. No such thing as a perfect crime.’

'I think,’ Quinn had replied, eventually, 'We’re talking about very different things.’

Her response, to that, had just been a gentle snore.

-

He woke up in a hospital ward, first unsure of how he’d gotten there, and then unsure he’d truly wanted to remember. The kolto-stained bandages told their own story - one he wished he didn’t know the prelude for, and which insisted on replaying itself on infinite loop, regardless.

'Captain.’ The attending physician was one he knew - one Eirn had known, one who’d never asked too many questions about how she’d ended up needing the attention she did. 'Sorry,’ she corrected, 'Major. I’m glad to see you’re awake.’

There were flowers on the nightstand: purple lilies, with blood red stamens, and a handwritten, hand-signed card.

-

Acina’s expression, once he was well enough to receive visitors (once he was well enough to be received; the Sith Empress could hardly be drifting into a public hospital, especially so soon after an attempt on her life) was more worried than it was anything else - a cause for his own concern all by itself.

'My apologies, Empress-’

'No,’ Acina replied, shaking her head. 'I should be the one apologising, Major. I should have included you more, as soon as I knew she’d be coming. Instead…’ she trailed off, sighing. 'The Alliance are yet to make their decision on- well, on an alliance, Acina confessed, 'But if they do- I’m certain she’d be more than happy to hear from you.’

'Empress,’ he started, finally finding the words to voice this thought, 'Not that I’m ungrateful, but- why do you care?’

'You are precious to her,’ Acina replied, 'And that makes you precious to me, and to the Empire. Never forget that, Major.’

-

At least, he tried to reflect, he could admit to the psychiatrists that kept being inflicted on him that she was alive, without them using this as proof he needed to be medicated - or worse. Losing control of himself, handing it off to drugs and doctors - it sat unpleasantly with him at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.

-

The Alliance, it turned out, did not consider standing with the Sith Empire to be in their interest. The decision visibly annoyed Acina, and puzzled Quinn; he wondered, for a long moment, if Eirn had decided that herself - if it was a decision blamed on Lorman, if it was a decision made in order to avoid _him_. He knew she’d been deeply disillusioned, in the wake of Ziost - grieving her homeworld, her parents, almost her entire extended family, blamed by the Dark Council for her service to Vitiate and dragged before them in a sham of a show trial. They’d been satisfied with her loyalty and oaths of fealty, in the end, but she’d come away from it with a distance and a hatred in her that she’d never had before, and he’d ended up wondering just how long it would be until that hatred festered into something worse.

(It hadn’t had a chance, though; Darth Marr had offered her a place at his side, out in wild space, and she’d answered that call eagerly - determined to make the monster that had destroyed so much of what she’d held dear pay)

-

Still, he could find himself a purpose; tried to comfort himself with the notion that she was yet alive, and that perhaps- _perhaps_ , he simply left that thought, before clinging to it as he attempted not to drown.

-

The world turned. The galaxy turned. He watched the news from Zakuul half-heartedly and half desperately, but Eirn had long perfected staying out of the spotlight. She’d been denied it on her own terms, and rejected it entirely on the terms of others, and other than Zakuul’s sham execution, had succeeded quite admirably. It was a skill Quinn had always admired, and currently hated; there were rumours, to be sure, of the (arrogant, apparently - why did people always reach for that insult?) Outlander Sith who’d struck down Zakuul’s God-Emperor, but never anything concrete. Never any proof.

_Never a body._

It was morbid, but it gave him a reason to wake up.

-

Some time after the dust should have settled, his morning briefing contained a summons; nothing more, just a summons to Acina’s offices - a time, an instruction to be prompt and well-turned out. Not that he was ever not these things, but the additional instruction gave him worried pause.

-

He was waved through her security, which continued to worry him; Acina’s secretary offered him a smile, which _definitely_ worried him.

-

 _Empress_ , she was saying, _I’m only here because-_

The bolt of fear was all but overwhelming; for a moment, he was convinced that she wasn’t there at all - that she was there for _Acina_ , that he shouldn’t have even bothered-

\- but there she was, in the flesh. Wearing the same, soft, lazy style of clothing she’d always favoured, on her lazy days; a lightsaber he didn’t recognise on her hip, and shadows he knew far too well in her eyes.

'eihn?’ he managed - his voice crumbling along with his resolve - with his conviction that he should even be there, with the terror that had been lurking ever since he’d read his summons.

'vai?’ she just replied - just as overwhelmed, he realised, the knowledge imposing itself on him unpleasantly.

For a long moment, neither of them moved - not consciously, anyway, not other than to shake (her, barely visibly trembling but doing so all the same; him, swallowing back fear and nerves and hope and shuddering with the effort) - and then, of all things, she was around him, her arms clutching him in a tight, inescapable hug, her face buried into his shoulder, her body pressed as closely into his as their clothing allowed, and- she was solid and real and she smelled of- of _her_ , of travel and poor sleep and the attempt to disguise this with scented deodorant, of Imperial-standard-issue dry shampoo and caf from one of the better stands in the city market.

('I’ll let you two get reacquainted,’ Acina purred, choosing to step out of the room, despite her ownership of it - but she was far outside of his awareness, of both of their awarenesses)

'you’re real,’ he just managed, stupidly - clutching her just as tightly, aware acutely of the tears that were soaking into her shoulder as he clung to her, turn.

'really real,’ she replied, and he realised she was weeping, too, and that just made him cling to her all the more.


End file.
